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Prescription drug costs are expected to see the fastest annual growth among health care expenditures over the next decade, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) predicts, rising an average of 6.3% a year due to higher drug prices and more use of specialty drugs such as those for genetic…

Women with moderate to severe iodine deficiency may take longer to achieve a pregnancy compared to women with normal iodine levels, according to a study by researchers at the National Institutes of Health. The study is the first to investigate the potential effects of mild to moderate iodine deficiency—common…

An FDA advisory committee has declined to recommend approval of a proposed new oral testosterone replacement therapy (Tlando, Lipocine Inc.). Lipocine said the Bone, Reproductive, and Urologic Drugs Advisory Committee (BRUDAC) voted six in favor and 13 against the benefit–risk profile of Tlando, which…

ASP0113 (Astellas Pharma Inc./ Vical Incorporated), an investigational DNA vaccine being developed for cytomegalovirus (CMV)-seropositive hematopoietic stem cell transplant recipients, did not significantly improve overall mortality and CMV end-organ disease through the first year following the transplant,…

A U.S. map of flu activity issued Friday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) was a sea of red: the color marking the highest levels of outpatient visits for an illness that continues to worsen this season. According to this week's CDC report, covering the week of January 7 to 13,…

Researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Brigham and Women’s Hospital have developed a capsule that can deliver a week’s worth of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) drugs in a single dose. This advance could make it much easier for patients to adhere to the strict schedule…

Nearly one in five health employees (18%) said they would be willing to sell confidential data to unauthorized parties, according to a new survey from consultant Accenture. The survey of 912 employees of provider and payer organizations in the United States and Canada found that the respondents willing…

Commercially insured patients in health plans with value-based contracts for diabetes, high cholesterol, and human immunodeficiency virus medicines in the past two years had copays that averaged 28% lower for those medicines compared to patients in other plans, according to an analysis from the Pharmaceutical…

A new study at Columbia University Irving Medical Center (CUIMC) challenges the popular notion that psychiatric medications are overprescribed in U.S. children and adolescents. When the researchers compared prescribing rates with prevalence rates for the most common psychiatric disorders in children,…

The FDA has approved trastuzumab-dkst (Ogivri, Mylan) as a biosimilar to trastuzumab (Herceptin, Genentech) for the treatment of patients with breast or metastatic stomach cancer (gastric or gastroesophageal junction adenocarcinoma) whose tumors overexpress the HER2 gene (HER2+). Ogivri is the first…

The Trump administration will allow states to test requiring some Medicaid recipients to work or participate in community activities such as volunteering or jobs training as a condition of eligibility for the government health insurance program for the poor. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services…

The FDA has approved ozenoxacin cream, 1% (Xepi, Medimetriks Pharmaceuticals, Inc.) for the treatment of impetigo in patients 2 months of age and older. The product is applied topically twice daily for five days. In the U.S., impetigo is estimated to account for approximately 10% of skin problems observed…

The FDA has approved a label update for secukinumab (Cosentyx, Novartis) that includes data on treating moderate-to-severe scalp psoriasis, a difficult-to-treat form of the disease that affects approximately half of all psoriasis patients. The label update is based on the results of a dedicated phase…